Wedding Planning

I've been very happily engaged for almost four months now, and looking back to that time it seems incredible how much has been accomplished since then! At first, planning a wedding seems a bit overwhelming. There are so many decisions to make, and details to begin thinking about.

Since my fiance is Catholic and I am Protestant, there were several questions I had about it all. Like, could we get married in the Catholic Church, or at least have the marriage recognized in the eyes of his church? In the days following the engagement, I spent a bit of time online researching this. And as it turned out, what I found online was in line with what his priest told us. We can marry in his church (or even in mine if we'd chosen to do that) with the proper dispensations, which seem easily obtained and are basically a paperwork formality. Since I'm baptized, it's considered an ecumenical marriage, and the priest will just need a copy of my baptismal certificate. My fiance does promise to remain true to his faith and to do his best to teach our children his faith, and if I do make any sort of promise in this regard it would be to not get in the way of his practice of his religion. It works out very well, as he and I attend his church together, and we've gone to my church on occasion (though less frequently, as it's a bit of a drive).

So, talking to his priest and my minister about co-officiating was one of the first steps we took. Fortunately, the wedding was set for well over a year from the time of the engagement, so it gave us plenty of time to coordinate everything. It didn't take long either to choose a reception site, with a little online research and visits with a couple of banquet facilities. We finally settled on a lovely site that offered the best value, and this was actually the site where his sister had her reception.

Next, we found a live band through gigmasters.com that we listened to audio samples and liked.

We did quite a bit of research on finding the best value for a photographer. That is an incredibly expensive element of the wedding day, and can easily cost upwards of $2,000! What we found was a package that offered full day coverage and a proof album rather than a full album for much less. It was just what we were looking for, and we can always place those retouched proofs ourselves into a lovely album if we later wish. So those sorts of options are out there if you don't want to break your budget to get some lovely photographs of your wedding day.

The decision on the florist came pretty easily, as we had met with a florist at a local bridal show and recieved $100 off the floral bill. When we went in for the consultation, we found the prices to be quite reasonable, and just went with it. There are times when you want to shop around, and other times when you know you're getting a good deal.

So now, we have all the major stuff done. I even have my dress from David's Bridal, and it's so beautiful! If I lose weight, which I intend to, I'd be allowed to exchange it for a smaller size in store. They even have petite sizes, which are 3" shorter. They're trying out their petite sizes, and hopefully they'll do well enough for them to continue to offer this. Unfortunately for me, I'll still either have to wear a 5" heel or have it shortened a bit more, but that's not too bad.

So in all of this, I've learned quite a bit. Normally, I'm not the most organized person, but with a bit of planning ahead, research, and taking it a step at a time, a lot has gotten done in a short time. And it's been fun! Another piece of advice I can think of to offer other brides is to look for a free online wedding planning site. I've found a really good one, ez wedding planner, that has a budget (which is crucial to keep track of), task list and reminders, registry list, guest list, seaching chart, tips and advice, and a wedding website that's password protected so that your guests can log in and see the events and other information you want them to know about your wedding.

Next up: planning the honeymoon (we're thinking a cruise to the carribean), the engagement 'party' next month (which will just be a dinner while the parents meet each other for the first time), and sending out those save the date cards...